World News - Delegates to International Conference Accept New Red Cross Emblem, Paving Way for Israel to Join

Delegates to an international conference accepted a new Red Cross emblem Thursday despite Syrian objections, paving the way for Israel to join the humanitarian movement after nearly six decades of exclusion. The 192 signatories of the Geneva Conventions approved the new "red crystal" emblem by vote after last-ditch negotiations between Israel and Syria over Damascus' demands for humanitarian access to Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights broke down. "I can inform you that the protocol has just been adopted," said Didier Pfirter, a Swiss diplomat who has been coordinating global efforts to muster support for the new emblem that would enable Israel to join the movement without having to use the red cross or Muslim red crescent already in use.... http://abcnews.go.com

Bitterly cold air spread across the Rockies and Midwest on Wednesday, closing schools, crippling cars and sending volunteers into the streets looking for homeless people to rescue.In West Yellowstone, Montana, a hamlet on the doorstep of Yellowstone National Park and a frequent icebox, the mercury plummeted to 45 below zero, shattering the old record for December 7 of 39 below set in 1927."I played taxi service this morning to a lot of my employees because their cars wouldn't start," said Gayle Archer, a manager at one of the town's motels, who watched other residents ski to work on unplowed streets.In Denver, the coroner was trying to determine if the death of a homeless man was caused by temperatures that dropped to 11 below....http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/12/07/cold.weather.ap/index.html?section=cnn_us

Kidnappers extended a deadline Wednesday for the threatened killing of four captive peace activists and posted a video of two of the hostages wearing robes and shackled with chains. The original deadline set by the group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness was Thursday. Al-Jazeera said it was extended until Saturday. Norman Kember, 74, of London, Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., and the Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, were taken hostage in Baghdad two weeks ago. They were working for the Christian Peacemaker Teams, an anti-war group....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1383308&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave the Bush administration’s most comprehensive accounting yet of U.S. rules on treatment of prisoners in the war on terrorism Wednesday, but her assurances left loopholes for practices that could be akin to torture.Rice said cruel and degrading interrogation methods are off limits for all U.S. personnel at home and abroad. But she gave no examples of banned practices, did not define the meaning of cruelty or degradation, did not say if the rules would apply to private contractors or foreign interrogators and made no mention of whether exceptions would be allowed.“As a matter of U.S. policy,” Rice said during a press conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the United Nations Convention Against Torture “extends to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the U.S. or outside the U.S.”...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10323501/from/RSS/

A man who claimed to have a bomb on board an American Airlines plane in Miami was shot dead by a US federal officer, officials say. Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old US citizen, was shot after fleeing an air marshal. No device has been found. Alpizar had arrived in Miami, Florida, from Ecuador and was boarding a flight to Orlando. It is the first time since the attacks of 11 September 2001 that a US air marshal has shot at a passenger. The US dramatically increased the number of air marshals on flights after the 2001 attacks. Local police and federal officers are investigating the incident, but officials say so far there is no hint of any links to terrorism. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4508432.stm

Germany stood firm on Wednesday in an embarrassing diplomatic spat with Washington, insisting the United States had acknowledged a mistake in the case of a German man it held for months as a terrorist suspect in an Afghan jail. The government said it backed comments by Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, when she said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Washington had admitted an error in the case of Khaled el-Masri.U.S. officials said Rice had made no such admission and suggested the German chancellor was mistaken. One told reporters: "We are not quite sure what was in her head."But government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told a news conference: "The comments, as they were made yesterday, are valid."The disagreement soured Merkel's first foray into transatlantic diplomacy since taking office two weeks ago and marred what had been seen as a bridge-building visit by Rice....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051207/ts_nm/germany_merkel_usa_dc